


all it takes (from me)

by justrunamok



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Angst, Disassociation, Mental Health Issues, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26524189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justrunamok/pseuds/justrunamok
Summary: maybe it’s all a test of fire, will you melt or will you glow like you did all those years ago?
Relationships: Horacio Carrillo/Reader, Horacio Carrillo/You
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	all it takes (from me)

Your mama had always told you, _stay away from people who live close to the fire, mija, they’ll cover you in ash and tears._

You were careful to do as she said, long after she left, calculating each foreign element that presented itself to you, weighing the possibilities as they came. It shouldn’t have surprised you when your complacence had the air shimmering with heat. Had you not entrusted your entire being to a man who could walk on red-hot coals with a smile? 

See, you thought that Horacio would shelter you, he had vowed to never let the fire touch you but he was careless. Like you, it had escaped his mind that it only takes the smallest lick, a toppled candle, for the drapes to curl and the wood to burn.

“Please do not leave like this, _mi amor._ It will be a week until you return.” The broad expanse of his back seemed to grow ever larger with tension. “We promised each other that much at our wedding, as partners.” 

Some far-away, detached corner of you clapped at how even your voice was– _see how much you’ve grown._ The rest of you, the part of you that was coherent and present and _trembling,_ wanted nothing more than to have him turn around and face you. In what seemed to be the running theme for the past few months, your plea goes unheard. 

It burns, the way his palms flex as he speaks, not even bothering to tilt his head back to look you in the eye. “We made a lot of promises that day. They aren’t worth keeping.” 

How unfair of him to throw the match and simply walk away, as if it didn’t hurt, as if he was indifferent to the acrid stench of a home in flames. Your eyes don’t see him go, the smoke pulling tears down the curve of your cheeks, pain like angry blisters festering in your chest. 

Your husband was never indecisive, he saw his options, decided on what was the most beneficial and was done with it. You envied that quality, the ability to pick which fires to stamp out and which to fan, never looking back once the decision was made. 

That was never something you could do, you needed time and information and contingencies, certainty blazing before you made your pick. You were fond of saying he was your puzzle piece, his sure disposition filling in for all your dallying. 

As you sit at a dinner table far too big for one broken heart, a mangled sob rips through your throat as you think of how sure he had been. _Did he mean it? Was the house you built together no longer worth rescuing?_

Apathy answers in his place, cruelly flippant, the hypothesis before the research. _He means everything he says, doesn’t he? He never tolerates matters that are not worth his time, why would he treat you any differently?_

* * *

It happens slowly, the red-hot knife cutting you in two, so smoothly you might have been made of butter. You don’t notice its progression, you never do. All you know is it is insidious, the quiet sizzle of a cigarette thrown on the grass before you realize the charred field.

You’re not exactly sure what is happening to you, the way your limbs move on their own is both a relief and a source of fear for you. You touch the world through a haze, your fingers are numb– _from what?_ – the skin of your throat lined with sandpaper, forcing you to scream in silence. 

Days pass and you remember precious little, picking up the papers at the county office was the only thing you recalled with a semblance of clarity. Maybe it was the clerk’s soft fingers on your arm, ring gleaming as she asked if you were alright. Maybe it was the rustle of the thick papers in the manila folder, its weight disproportionate to the destruction it would bring upon the love you desperately tried to shield from the fire.

Time slips by, slick as the oil they use to make flames burn hotter, and you watch yourself move through your life like an outsider peeping through the window.

* * *

He had priority lists, you see, plans and blueprints laid out in his mind to ensure that everything ran smoothly. It was a habit he knew to be good, efficient, allowing him to work unflinchingly and manage the softer, brighter part of his life with care. So he noticed when his lists started failing him, they were too long, wrapping around his feet as he tried to slake the surface. Too many things were being pushed further down, important issues that he should never have compromised on in favour of the chaos of his country’s underbelly. 

He had let the honey-sweet balm of your love fall from its’ top rung, silent in its’ fall as the flames licked at him, the scent of blackened paper and burning sugar the only sign. You had suffered him quietly, accepting his absence from your bed and weathering his cold remarks with soft smiles. The one occasion where you ask for his time and compassion ends horribly, he knows this, he remembers the words, his callous jab at your marriage. It shames him, the way he spoke to you, his tone and the words he spat, his blasphemy of the love you gave to him so freely. But the shame goes deeper than that, the days he came home to watch you recoil from his harsh sentences, the times he promised to be with you yet left you alone. Promises, that’s what it all came back to. The promises he broke, the promises you had begged him to keep. 

The mission ends well and he books it home, worrying at how he let the flames live so close to you. He waits for you on the couch, uncomfortable with how the sunset lengthens the shadows and makes him think of how small you must have looked in this house all alone. 

The slow jangle of keys announces your return and Horacio jerks to his feet as you step in, blinking slowly at him. There is something that sets off the alarms in his head when you look at him, the way you move as if suspended by strings. He doesn’t know what it is, but it frightens him all the same.

“Are you ill, _hermosa?_ ” he asks, following you to the bedroom you share, unnerved as he watches you open a drawer, your face blank. 

You face him with a stack of papers in hand, words stilted as you speak, “If you want, I have the divorce papers.” Stumbling back in shock, a strangled sound leaves Horacio’s mouth as he stares at you. “I got them yesterday- no, I can’t remember, I don’t know. But I got them,” A rattling inhale before you continue. 

“Just in case.” 

And now, now the smoke reaches him, burrowing deep into his clothes, his skin, clogging his throat. He doesn’t understand, you couldn’t possibly think– _oh, but you could._

“In case what?” he rasps, sluggish in his surprise. He watches you teeter, swaying as if a wind he couldn’t see was pushing you sideways.

Your eyes shutter just slightly, the seconds before your answer long and heavy. “In case you meant what you said.” The words feel like wooden blocks falling from between your teeth, an actor reading the script. “About our promises.” 

Horacio had always been a quiet man but he rarely struggled to speak when he wanted to. But in this moment, confronted with this _shadow_ of the person he had sworn his love to and the possibility of having failed you in the worst of ways, the words don’t come.

_Look at how you failed, look at they doubt you. See that dull sheen in those eyes, the fucking papers in their hands?_

_You put them there._

In staggered movements, you step forward, pressing the bundle of papers into Horacio’s chest when he doesn’t take them from you, your palms almost weak in their pressure. 

He watches you instead, dread suffused into his pores as he tries to figure out what to do. There is a void in you and it is terrifying. Strangely, he feels like a child caught playing with matches, bewilderment and shame heating his skin as he thinks with no small amount of panic, _I did this._


End file.
